


Rivalry

by Ginipig



Series: Cullistair One-Shots [20]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Grey Warden Alistair (Dragon Age), M/M, Morrigan at Skyhold, Prompt Fill, Tumblr Prompt, no dark ritual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-03-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:14:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23389360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ginipig/pseuds/Ginipig
Summary: When a prank goes wrong, Alistair begs Cullen for help. He provides it, but in a most unexpected way.
Relationships: Alistair & Cullen Rutherford, Alistair/Cullen Rutherford, Antagonistic Alistair and Morrigan, cullistair - Relationship
Series: Cullistair One-Shots [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1604995
Comments: 11
Kudos: 40





	Rivalry

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jellysharkbat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jellysharkbat/gifts).



> Tumblr prompt from jellysharkbat:  
> “I’m only here to establish an alibi," Cullistair.
> 
> Well, I didn't use the _exact_ quote, jelly, but here it is for you anyway 😊

Alistair rushed along the battlements, walking quickly but trying not to break out into a full run.

The guards he passed didn’t pay him much mind, except when he — instinctually, even though he knew it was suspicious — looked over his shoulder.

Shit, she was still following him and oh, Maker, was she pissed. He needed to lose her, and fast.

Unfortunately, she’d been around here longer and knew the maze-like castle better than he did.

Fortunately for him, he probably knew far more about the numerous hiding places. They were always the first things he looked for in enormous castles like this one.

Old habits, he supposed.

The problem with his hiding place plan was that most of those spots were deep down in the bowels of Skyhold and not anywhere near where he was now.

Plus, she could turn into a raven whenever she wanted and just fly to where he was, transform back to her sneaky witch thief self, and then _zap!_ Frog time.

“Alistair!” Morrigan screeched from behind him, still covered in honey, though Sera’s bees seemed to have either lost interest or lost track of her as she’d taken off after him. “Get back here!”

Right, like that was going to work. He looked over his shoulder again, and shit, she’d gained on him, so he burst into a run —

And slammed right into a brick wall.

Actually, from the sound and feel of it, he’d slammed into a large person wearing full plate armor — silverite, probably — but since Alistair stumbled backward while the other person didn’t seem to budge, it might as well have been a brick wall.

“Sorry, sorry!” Alistair said, fully aware he was rapidly losing time and _needed to get the Void out of here_.

“Maker’s breath, watch where you’re going!” a stern, commanding voice snapped.

“I — Cullen?”

“Alistair?”

Oh, thank the Maker, a friendly.

Alistair grasped Cullen by the arms. “Cullen, quick, I need an alibi.”

“You need a what? Why are you running —”

“I’ll explain later, just tell her I’ve been talking with you about strategy, or, or —” Alistair bent down and scooped up a frankly ridiculous amount of parchment and shoved it back into Cullen’s hands. “Please, Cullen, I’ll make it up to you —”

“Alistair!” shouted Morrigan, and fuck, she was practically on top of them now.

“Please, Cullen, I —”

And suddenly he was shoved against the half-wall of the battlements, Cullen’s thighs and hips and breastplate pressed against his body, and Maker’s breath, Cullen’s mouth on his, warm and soft and gentle.

A sigh left Alistair, unbidden, as he leaned into Cullen’s _everything_ and relaxed into an embrace he’d longed for since he’d learned Cullen was here at Skyhold. He dreamed of this every night as he fell asleep in his lonely bed. Sometimes he dreamed of it during the day, too, particularly during those long, boring war table meetings when he had little else to do but watch Cullen’s muscular arms flex to grip the pommel of his sword or Cullen’s large hands shift to various points on the map or Cullen’s deep, mellifluous baritone explain complicated strategy, with those lips that looked so kissable —

“Alistair!” screeched someone nearby, startling them apart.

Cullen was just as breathless as Alistair, who gazed into those lovely, honey-colored eyes, unable to form words to —

A hand gripped his arm _really hard_ and spun him away. He yelped, as much at the pain as at the horrifying image of Morrigan, teeth bared, hair sticking up at stupidly hilarious angles, face covered in a thick layer of honey and dirt and a couple of bees.

Right. Morrigan. Pissed at him.

“What the fuck?” he snapped. “Do you mind? We were — I mean —” Alistair waved a hand helplessly between him and Cullen, trying and failing to explain what in the Maker’s name had just happened.

Cullen cleared his throat and spoke in his Commander Voice. “Yes. Alistair and I were in the middle of a discussion. What, could possibly be so important, Lady Morrigan, that you had to interrupt —”

“Do not ‘Lady Morrigan’ _me_ , Templar.” Morrigan jerked Alistair’s arm sharply, her bony fingers digging in like daggers. “This does not concern you.”

Alistair yanked his arm from her grasp and tried to rub the pain away. “I don’t think it concerns me, either. I’ve been here with Cullen talking strategy for the past —”

Morrigan laughed, and it was her nasty one, too. “Ah, is that the name for it these days? Tell me, Templar, what did he promise you in exchange for lying for him? Another kiss, perhaps? I was not aware that you are so easily manipulated, though I am hardly surprised. Your little crush is so pathetic that —”

“Hey!” Alistair stepped between her and Cullen, whose cheeks now matched the shade of his coat and whose expression indicated was seriously considering throwing himself off the battlements.

Alistair clenched his fists at his side to keep from doing anything he might regret. Sure, Morrigan might have started all this by insulting him in front of and to the Inquisitor, but even he could admit that he wasn’t _entirely_ blameless here.

But Cullen wasn’t a part of his and Morrigan’s antagonistic relationship, let alone the fact that Alistair had heard about Morrigan being nothing but cruel to him since she’d arrived based solely on the fact that he used to be a Templar. So no, Alistair wasn’t going to let her pull Cullen into _their_ personal rivalry, and certainly not with cruel insults and lies.

“Your problem is with me, Morrigan, so leave him out of this.” Alistair looked her up and down and couldn’t resist a smirk, adding, “And maybe take a bath. You look awful.”

Morrigan let out a hiss that was somehow even more terrifying than her face right now. “Look to your own sins before accusing me, Alistair. Leliana and the others who love to gossip about you two would be immensely disappointed to see you manipulating him as you are in this game of yours.” She scoffed and crossed her arms, trying and failing to look haughty with all that honey still on her face. “Indeed, even as minutely as I respect you — and I truly cannot describe in words just how infinitesimal that is — I am rather appalled that you would stoop so low.”

Alistair was too confused to even begin to address the number of insults she fit into so few sentences. “What in Thedas are you talking about, you crazy witch? You should know better than anyone that I’m too terrible at lying to manipulate people, much less my friends who I actually _care about_ , not that you would know anything about that. If anyone’s manipulating someone here, it’s _you_ trying to turn Cullen against me by —”

“You are a bastard,” Morrigan spat, and he winced. That hurt, and based on her smirk, she knew it, too. “As well as a coward. Not only for this —” She swiped a hand down her face and managed to remove most of the honey only for it to stick to her hand instead, which she shook out, to no avail, with disgust. “— but also for resorting to tricks when a simple and _honest_ discussion of your reciprocal feelings would have sufficed.”

Alistair nearly choked. He had no idea how she’d learned about his feelings for Cullen, but revealing them aloud was a low blow, even for her.

“Morrigan,” he hissed, but she ignored him.

“I had never imagined to feel sorry for a _Templar_ , but perhaps ‘tis better that you learnt his true colors now, Commander, rather than later.”

While Alistair was internally debating why attacking her was a bad idea, he finally registered everything she said, all together, at once.

And his heart stopped.

Leliana and the others _who loved to gossip_? About _him and Cullen_?

Cullen’s _little crush_?

_Reciprocal_ feelings?

Morrigan’s mouth opened to form a perfect circle — until, that is, it began to curl upward into a smile, which produced a laugh that Alistair had only heard from her once, perhaps twice, in the entire time he’d known her.

It was, as far as he knew, her genuinely joyful laugh.

“Oh. Oh, Void.” She threw her arms out in a full, hearty cackle that sent shivers up Alistair’s spine because of how much it sounded like Flemeth’s. “Is it possible that you two ‘seasoned, experienced warriors’” — her voice deepened as she mocked the Inquisitor’s phrasing — “are so utterly clueless as to not see what everyone is this blasted castle has known since Alistair arrived? Oh, this is too much. And to think —”

She was interrupted by her own laughter, and now Alistair grew concerned that a demon might have possessed her.

“To think you once told me ‘They don’t make stupid templars,’ or that you” — she waved to Cullen, bursting into another wave of laughter — “insisted that the Chantry library meant you are ‘fairly well-read.’ It is obvious that the Chantry’s education was lacking in areas other than magic.”

Morrigan inhaled deeply and sighed, ending her — Maker’s breath, her _laughing fit_. Then her smile returned to its sneaky, plotting, witch thief ways. “Oh, this … this is a sweeter revenge than any I could have planned myself. ‘Tis only one last piece of the puzzle to make it perfect.”

And quicker than Alistair could react, she wiped her honey-, dirt-, and bee-corpse-covered hand — yuck — onto the middle of his shirt, leapt into the air, and transformed into a raven.

In stunned silence, Alistair watched it fly in the same direction as several other messenger ravens.

“Oh, _fuck you_!” he finally shouted.

The raven replied with a caw that sounded eerily like a cackle as it dove down into Leliana’s tower.

“That absolute —”

“Alistair,” a soft voice said from behind him.

Alistair whirled around to find Cullen, solemn and silent and abashed, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Cullen, I am so sorry I roped you into that, I never meant for her to —”

“Alistair.”

“— say such awful things to you or to put you on the spot or in her _crossfire_ and —”

“Alistair.”

“— I promise you I wasn’t manipulating you at all, I would never do that, you’re my friend and I care about you and I —”

And for the second time in ten minutes, Alistair found himself pressed up against the wall being deeply and soundly kissed by Cullen.

When they came up for air an eternity later, Alistair said, “Cullen, I —”

“Hush.” Cullen didn’t pull away, but though their foreheads still touched, his fingers did manage to cover Alistair’s mouth. “Was she right? Do you feel — she was right about me, about my feelings, but was she —”

Alistair groaned and let his head fall onto Cullen’s shoulder. “Yes. She was right,” he mumbled into Cullen’s mantle.

Cullen let out a huff that might have been a sigh, or perhaps a laugh. “My condolences to your ego, admitting such a thing.”

“It really hurts,” Alistair whimpered, and Cullen definitely chuckled at that.

They stood there, on the battlements, in each other’s arms, and in spite of the mess on his shirt — damn it — and the emotional roller coaster of the past half hour, Alistair was …

He began to laugh. Small giggles at first, and then chuckles, and then full out laughter. Cullen laughed right along with him, and they continued to laugh until they were out of breath and barely holding each other up.

When their joy had run its course, they leaned against the wall, still in each other’s arms.

“Did you know?” Alistair finally asked. “Because you kissed me right here, in front of your guards and all of Skyhold.”

(The guards, thankfully, had made themselves scarce not long after Morrigan arrived.)

Cullen shook his head. “I hoped you might feel the same, but I feared you never could.”

“But you kissed me!”

“You begged for an alibi, and she was coming, and I … panicked.” Cullen shrugged. “I remembered a story Varric told once about hiding in plain sight by, er —” He rubbed the back of his neck again in that nervous gesture Alistair loved. “I don’t know what came over me.”

Alistair smiled. “Whatever it was, I’m glad it did.”

“And that Morrigan explained things, in her way. Without her, who knows how long we would have continued in ignorance.”

“Can we stop talking about Morrigan, please?”

Cullen let out a small sigh and gripped the parchment he still held a little more tightly. “I suppose you’re right. I do need to return to work.”

“That’s not what I was suggesting.”

“Then wh —”

This time, Alistair interrupted Cullen by throwing his arms around Cullen’s neck and kissing him with a vigor he’d lacked both previous times due to the sheer surprise of it all.

As Cullen let his pile of parchment fall to the ground and pulled Alistair into his warm, strong embrace, Alistair thought that perhaps he was right.

After all, Morrigan _had_ helped them. He should probably thank her for her assistance. Maybe send her a nice letter.

And wouldn’t _that_ piss her off.


End file.
